Welcome to my island home, beautiful place I call my own
Welcome to my island home, beautiful place I born and grown.
We have coconut water [Inna me island]
Sasparilla [Inna me island]
We have sweet brown sugar [Inna me island]

We have some people who pocket fat, while some people like sewer rats
Selfishness, boldfaced greed, citizens can't get basic needs
Like health care in the red
Minor surgeries killing you dead
You sick, no bed to rest your head
In labour, use toilet instead
People seeing stress in so many ways, can't get water for days
Eight and nine year-olds getting grays, by ten, becoming strays
In a glee, boast we independent and free
I'm asking how could this be?
When more than ninety percent of you and me -
We ent free from poverty.

Still a liability yet we live meretriciously
With we coconut water [Inna me island]
Sasparilla [Inna me island]
We got sweet brown sugar [Inna me island]

Murder, violence and crime, citizens can't get peace of mind
Dial 999, waste of time!
Mama tell dem kiss where the sun don't shine
Justice completely blind, defense and prosecution wine and dine
No cent, five cent and no dime
Give them dollar, dollar, dollar and they super fine.

Our youth, future of the country
Cocaine hook some like laglay, reduce them to vagrancy, not to mention HIV
While some study and earn a degree, frying chicken for KXC
Some turn to banditry to support their family.
You see plagued in illiteracy
You see many of them making pacoti.

We got steel drum, calypso and mas
All we focus on is oil and gas
When the wells run dry and we eating grass
We go watch one another and scratch we arrr....

Real kicks, traffic light politics - red, yellow and green fanatics
Nyam the tricks like cheese and Crix
And in the mix, can't get a quick pick fix
At a loss, we on a collison course, shortage of moral resource
Double standard is we boss, mediocrity is we cross
Yet we chill, everything is a wining pill
That is why we prison cells fill
And exactly like Jack and Jill, we wining down the hill.

But still I suppose it is a thrill to have we
Coconut water [Inna me island]
Sasparilla [Inna me island]
Yam and cassava [Inna me island]

We got e-mail, them-mail, AG-mail, Hotmail,
One female like a slimy snail
And if you think Mister Jack-fish getting scale.... Fail!
Not one night in jail.

People, people like they comatized
Real eyes cannot realise the lies
Rely on a guy with the pie in the sky
Lie, lie, lie and mamguy.

How low, how much lower we must go?
Consecutive presidency had such difficulty to find integrity
Yet we smile for a mile and stay positive
Easy to forget and forgive, this is just the way that we live
Some say, "What a privilege!"

Privilege, privilege, some say what a privilege
Privilege, privilege, folks in the village say sacrilege.

Source: The lyrics posted on this blog are often transcribed directly from performances. Although it is my intention to faithfully transcribe I do not get all the words and I have a knack for hearing the wrong thing. Please feel free to correct me or to fill in the words that I miss by dropping me a message via e-mail. I'd be forever grateful. Thanks in advance! ..............................................................................................................................A Note From The Gull

Thank you, Kurt Allen. The juxtaposition of the inviting tourist brochurese and the not so pleasant realities of life on the ground will always evoke dismay and encourage questioning so this composition has succeeded on that level. The music is messy at times but then maybe the sometimes discombobulating arrangement was intentional in order to amplify this jarring and unsettling message?

"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Lord, Please walk beside me through this day. Clear the heavy air with the lightness of Your Presence. Guide my hands and steady my heart that I may give comfort when I cannot give hope, that I may give relief when I do not have a cure, and that I may radiate Your healing peace when the limits of science, time, and the human body overwhelm us all.Amen